Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Koreas involved in truth game over generals' talks
By Jun Ji-hye
The generals’ talks between the two Koreas has turned into a game of liar’s poker between Seoul and Pyongyang after the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released information on their basis late Thursday.
South and North Korea held the closed-door talks Wednesday at the truce village of Panmunjeom in an effort to find ways of easing military tension on the peninsula.
Two days after the talks, the KCNA claimed that it had proposed the meeting be open to the media, and it was the South that demanded secrecy.
This contradicted Seoul’s earlier explanation that the North asked that the meeting be kept confidential.
The KCNA claimed, “Given that the meeting was prepared with our Supreme Commander Kim Jong-un, we asked the South to make it public, but the South insisted on closed talks.”
As controversy grew, the Ministry of National Defense said that the North’s first offer ― on Oct. 7 ― to hold the meeting contained the “implication” that it wanted confidentiality.
“Following Pyongyang’s second offer on Oct. 8, the government proposed holding a secret meeting on Oct. 15. The North agreed,” it said.
When the talks took place, Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, said it would be strange for the North to want the meeting to be kept a secret.
“Given that North Korea has recently been aggressive about improving inter-Korean relations, it would not make sense for it to demand this,” he said.
Chang added that the South may have been the one to propose a closed-door meeting due to the seriousness of the issues at stake.
The isolated state also claimed that it asked for National Security Office (NSO) chief Kim Kwan-jin to represent Seoul. The South countered that it would send Yoo Jeh-seung, deputy defense minister for policy, instead, the KCNA said.
Seoul admitted this was true.
“The North said it was set to send Gen. Kim Yong-chol, director of North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, as an envoy, and demanded Kim represent the South,” the defense ministry said.
The belated explanation raised criticism about the government’s excessively secretive attitude regarding the talks.
Meanwhile, concern has arisen that the unilateral release of information by Pyongyang could freeze inter-Korean relations.
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